MSE News: Green Deal launches to help insulate homes

atarisrocks

who pays for it in rental properties when the tenant pays for bills?

will it be a case of the landlord getting a nice upgraded house and being able to charge more rent as they will claim it all newly refitted and energy saving and then the tenant having to pay more on top when the bills come in?

also will the landlord have to declare this to new tenants or will they get a shock when the bill arrives with a sub charge on it?

sourcrates

"If you've got an IVA do you really want to tie yourself into high interest loan to improve the efficiency of your home? If you install solid wall insulation it'll save about £250 a year and you'll need to pay it back at about £220 - £230 so you're not really saving that much but attaching a huge loan to your house."

well i look at it this way, i will have to pay my electric bill in the future and it will never be more than it was before any new installation so its stuff for nowt really, cant see a problem but would need to know all costs/facts etc first.

new_owner

atarisrocks wrote: »

who pays for it in rental properties when the tenant pays for bills?

will it be a case of the landlord getting a nice upgraded house and being able to charge more rent as they will claim it all newly refitted and engery saving and then the tenant having to pay more on top when the bills come in?

also will the landlord have to declare this to new tenants or will they get a shock when the bill arrives with a sub charge on it?

Thats the first thing I thought when I read this today.

The only people I can see going for this are going to bo those who cannot afford to do it any other way..

I can see plumber turning up...

(plumber) you need a new boiler.. 4k

(owner) I cannot afford it...

(Plumber) we can do it through the green deal....We should upgrade ..........etc..


I think its a shocking scheme.

MarkBargain

I agree with the earlier comments, this is confusing, poor value for money, and could hinder selling your house in future.

There were lots of free loft / cavity wall insulation offers recently, in fact British Gas are coming to do mine for free next month. Better to wait for these offers to come round again for insulation perhaps (if they do).

For a boiler, get quotes of local gas engineers (https://www.gassaferegister.co.uk/), I am sure most give free quotes and advice. This is great for those who can afford it or who can add the cost to their mortgage.

The best way to save on heating is TURN IT DOWN and put a jumper on! Just heat the rooms you need. The people I know who heat their house to tropical temperatures and walk round in t-shirts in winter, it's so wasteful.

A cheap way to save energy is to replace incandescent light bulbs with LED ones, as although they cost around £10 each they use 10 times less electricity and last years.

Chris2d

As a gas heating engineer i can see some problems ahead. The biggest being this pay back period on boilers. Unlike the 20 year old boilers we are replacing the new ones may give you 10 years service if your lucky. If the Green Deal lets you pay for it over 20 years you may yourself paying for a boiler you had to replace years earlier. Also savings may not be as big as you think. Some 15 year old boilers can be nearly 80% efficient. New boilers may only be 10% more.
As a small business we will probably be pushed aside by the grabbing big boys, yet we could do the job cheaper.

Kite2010

I can see more cold-calling by companies saying you can get money from the government to so stuff to your house without saying you pay the money back over 20 years at 10% interest.

rogerblack

Chris2d wrote: »

As a small business we will probably be pushed aside by the grabbing big boys, yet we could do the job cheaper.

You cannot participate in the green deal unless you're willing to undertake all measures - so you'd need to do solid wall insulation, cavity, windows, ...

Clearly if you're a small plumbing buisness, you can't do this.

British Gas on the other hand, are at the moment, collectively wetting themselves with joy.

I can see in the future lots and lots of really dodgy 'golden rule' calculations that sort-of-make sense if you look at them sideways, while very, very drunk to allow expensive bad value works to go ahead.

(In principle, small buisnesses can team up to provide all the services)

laurel7172

I've been waiting to find out about this before installing double glazing.

So what we have is high interest rates, locked in for a long period, and probably a jacked-up cost as well. Oh, and the "golden rule" that "ensures" the repayments will be less than the savings is unenforceable and therefore worthless.

Poor show.

marliebee

What everyone seems to have missed so far in this thread is something called the Energy Company Obligation (ECO) which is being introduced alongside the Green Deal to provide additional funding where the 'Golden Rule' won't work.

Where the Golden Rule does apply, a householder could go for a Green Deal plan. The interest rate isn't the best in the world but it's certainly not bad, and if someone is able (and would prefer to) access cheaper interest rates on a personal loan to make improvements there is absolutely nothing stopping them from doing so!

But where it doesn't work (because the payback period would be too long to cover the cost of the improvements in the duration of the Green Deal loan period) there are 'top up' funds available through the ECO.

So the reader living in an off gas area in a solid wall house which will cost a lot to insulate will probably be able to benefit from a significant ECO grant to top up their Green Deal plan.

There is a Prezi on the PlanLoCaL website which explains it a bit better... I can't post the link but go to the section on Green Deal and ECO and in the downloads on the right hand side look for the Prezi link.

And there's more info on Green Deal (also from the Centre for Sustainable Energy, a national energy charity which provides impartial advice) on the advice section of their website.

The media hype is making it sound like a rubbish initiative but it's actually a smart way of financing improvements to homes without us having to stump up thousands of pounds up front.

But yes... for properties with cavity walls or uninsulated loft spaces, we all should have gone for the 'free' insulation offers while they were available!

marliebee

rogerblack wrote: »

You cannot participate in the green deal unless you're willing to undertake all measures - so you'd need to do solid wall insulation, cavity, windows, ...

Clearly if you're a small plumbing buisness, you can't do this.

British Gas on the other hand, are at the moment, collectively wetting themselves with joy.

I can see in the future lots and lots of really dodgy 'golden rule' calculations that sort-of-make sense if you look at them sideways, while very, very drunk to allow expensive bad value works to go ahead.

(In principle, small buisnesses can team up to provide all the services)

You can get accredited without having to be able to install all the measures. You can be a Green Deal Installer - you don't need to be a Green Deal Provider to be able to get work out of the initiative.